Pictures Via Generous Neighbor - Egyptian Art in Berlin

Harpboy made a perfectly good suggestion about using my hosts wifi connection directly to my computer, but it is a very old machine and I was afraid of messing it up for her and decided new disciplines are often mentally healthy.  But due to a generous neighbor who hasn't put a password on his wifi, I can give you some pictures.  (I'm sitting in the backyard again and fortunately, there is a plastic overhang because the neighbor is having his tile roof redone and bits and pieces are coming down.)

Museum Insel (Island) is four or five museums on an island of the Spree River in the middle of central Berlin, in what was East Berlin.  I didn't do my homework well enough, nor does my faulty brain remember all I was told, but some of the museums or parts of all of them were badly damaged during WWII.  These are the columns as you walk to the Neues (New) Museum.  It's new in the sense that it has been newly reconstructed and the old collections newly reunited.  It covers prehistory and then Egyptian and Greek works particularly.

As we walked along the columns I took this picture of the what I think is the Altes (old) Museum that has paintings and sculptures from more modern times.

We wanted to see, given the short time we had - we bought combined tickets that let you into all the museums for 14 Euros ($18) - the Egyptian exhibit and the building itself with its combination of the old original building and Chipperfield's design for the old parts.  So that's what you mostly get to see here.  No, I don't know what it says.

This statute was about 12 feet tall.  It's King Amenemhat III.

This is the Family Group Ptahmai.  Father, wife, and two daughters.

It was labeled 1840-1800 BC.  When I see things like this I am reminded that our modern inclination to believe that we are smarter and more developed than the people of the past is ridiculous.  While we do know what has happened in terms of what our culture says is history since then, as individuals we live lives with the same abilities to think, to create, to worry about how we look, about whether we have enough money, etc.  These people in the statue and the artist who created the statue could probably show up in Berlin and after the initial shocks of time travel, would probably fit in and understand our world. 

The Nefertiti bust - my key interest in this museum - is in the room at the end of this one.  Photos were not allowed.  But someone on Flicker has posted some and others of this museum that are much better than mine.  So you can see a lot more.

This Greek God, who I think was found in Egypt, stands at the other end of the hall and can see Nefertiti.

But this robed Goddess - like the God, about 12 feet tall - is standing next to him and probably does not approve of his view.

I thought this jewelery looked like things people do today.  It said 7th Century.

These are some mummy masks.  I thought this face and hair could be walking the streets of Berlin and not many would notice that she wasn't from now.

OK, enough for now.  I'll try to get some more up, but we want to go see some more things on our last day before heading for London.

I Tried, But Still No Pictures

I'm going to have to learn how to just write.  I tried using a a flash drive that was here and the whole computer got sick and had to be rebooted.  So pictures will have to wait until I can use my own computer.  I'm learning where the ' is and the z and y are, but still mix them a bit.

Beautiful day today, so we spent a lot of time just in the backyard enjozing the sunshine and birds and flowers.  We also did laundry and hung it out to dry.  In the late afternoon we took the subway to the area that houses the old Checkpoint Charlie and the new Jewish Museum.  I know that I went through Checkpoint Charlie in 1964 to go into East Berlin.  It was a verz eerie feeling, like going into no-man's land.  But today there is a little box in the middle of the street with sandbags in front and some copies of old signs (good writers shouldn't need pictures, right?  I should be writing so lushly that you can imagine it all) and a cute young German in a soldier uniform mugging with the tourists for 1 Euro per picture.  Traffic drives by on both sides.

Several blocks away is the starkly built Jewish Museum.  When we were here last in 2001 it wasn't open yet.  It's silvery with gashes for windows and it's built like a trainwreck, with cars connected but pointing in different directions. It's is one piece, but makes jagged angled turns.   There are police out in front and no cars are allowed to stop near the building.  We didn't think we had enough time to do justice to the exhibits so we looked through the bookstore.  I'm not completely sure I want to see it.  But it isn't a holocaust museum, if I understand it right, it's a museum about the Jews of Germany and their contributions and experiences.  So it does include WW II.   There were lots of folks there.  We grabbed another subway for two stops to find a waterfall that was in the guidebook in a nearby park.  We stumbled into a big park - Victoria Park - with a huge football field, beer garden, playground, and a hill.  I'm still trying to figure out whether it was natural or man made since Berlin is so flat.  The light was beautiful and many people were sitting on the grass enjoying the warm weather.  Picture looking down the slope of green grass with lots of young bodies sprawled out in groups with trees surrounding the opening and etherial light on the edges.  It's in my camera and you'll recognize it when I finally get to post the pictures.

The waterfall wasn't as nice as the picture in the book, but it was nice going through the park.  We came out on Kreutzberg which turns into Bergmannstrasse (sorry, I was trying to find the double s symbol and somehow it posted and I'm not done yet.  I'll leave this up but keep writing.)

Great Pictures, But Zou Can't See Them

We went to Museum Island in central Berlin todaz.  But we also moved to staz in the emptz house of a friend who is out of town.  Her son did the sound for the first movie we saw on Saturdaz.  I'im using her computer which is connected to the internet and she doesnät have wifi.  It's a German kezboard and the z and y are switched and there are some other little differences.  But worst of all, it can't read mz usb thumb drive.  I will trz another one.

The museums were incredible, though one is also aware that the Egzptians and Greeks would like to have their stuff back.  Another interesting quirck is that the Neues Museum - it's an old museum but was bombed in WW II and never restored until after unification - was restored bz David Chipperfield, who is, if I recall correctlz, the architect who did the addition to the Anchorage Museum.  Let's just saz Berlin got a much better deal than Anchorage did.  He did a spectacular job of adding new structure which does not detract from the old structure.

I kez attraction in the museum is the bust of Nerfertiti.  And that zou are not allowed to photograph anzwaz.  But there has alwazs been a small (4 inches mazbe) flat brass head of Nerfertiti in the house where I grew up.  So I have to check with mz mom to see if she had  come to Berlin to see the original.  It is reallz amaying.

Later we went to the Reichstag which has a new glass dome on top which zou can tour.  More great pictures zou can't see.  Zou have great views of Berlin.  This was free, though there was about a 30 mniute line.  Someone came up to us and said that since J had a cane, we didn't need to wait and pointed to another entrance.  So there are some advantages to J having broken a bone in her foot.

But thez also have free headsets (as do the museums) and so as zou wind around the ramp to the top it tells zou what zou are seeing in the distance.  The skz was cloudz to the west and the skz bright orange.  Then the ball of the sun appeared on the horiyon.  All verz spectacular.

We stopped in a Thai restaurant at the YooBahnhof - it was much easier ordering in Thai than in German.  The person taking our order agreed.

We'll see if we can get the pictures up tomorrow.

[Update:  Now you can see the museum pictures and the Reichstag pictures.]

Local Housing

We're staying in Southwest Berlin, a quiet suburb with trees and parks.  As I said yesterday, the housing complex we're staying in with my daughter was built as low income housing in the 1920s.  Today, the sky was grey and by afternoon it was raining.  But I walked M to her office in the morning and took pictures of the neighborhood on my way home. 

Americans often believe they have the highest standard of living.  These are, I'm sure, better than average homes, but neither is this Beverly Hills either. 

This is where M goes everyday to work on her dissertation and meet with other international fellows to discuss her work and theirs.

This is the old building next door.

Here's the mailman.  I wonder how much energy the US would save if the mail carriers using vehicles converted to bikes where it was feasible.

I tried to discuss Berlin fashion yesterday.  And there are people in some of the pictures in earlier posts.  I wouldn't say this woman was typical, neither would I say she was unusual.

And now starts some of the houses on my walk back.

Yesterday, a lot trees, like this one, finally had their leaves open.

This is a playground.

I'm not sure if this is apartments or condos.

I'm guessing this is a hooded crow, but there are lots of kinds of crows. There are also some very big pigeon like birds with rings around the neck and white bars on their wings.  Haven't been able to get a good picture yet.

This place had six different mailboxes.

This appears to be two separate dwellings.

And this is the park we walked across on the way.

Thinking About Ethics

Toward the end of this trip we'll stop at a conference where I'm scheduled to present a paper.  So along with figuring out Euros and electrical sockets and public transportation in a new city (Berlin is in many ways a new city since I was here last) I'm also trying to get the paper written. 

Basically it's about public ethics and how we think about it.  The genesis of this specific paper comes from the Alaska political trials and their aftermath, but while they have stimulated my thinking on this, I realize that there is a lot more prior experience/thought/study that get me to the argument I’m making. 

There’s a lot of background to this so I’m not sure I can explain it clearly and succinctly.  The basic argument is this:

Modern public ethics stems from our move from feudal societies to bureaucratic societies.  In the former, public works (roads, bridges, water systems, etc.) were constructed by unelected rulers and their allies who were bound to them through loyalty based on many things including, often, family ties.   The modern world used the logic of science and rationality to structure organizations and societies based on the rule of law.  So we moved from human societies where social networks and loyalty within those networks were foremost to a much more depersonalized society where before the law, everyone is supposed to be equal.  Special favors to family and friends are forbidden. Conceptually anyway.

The ethics we teach today is based on that notion - the rule of law is the standard.  I’m a strong believer in the rule of law.  It is an attempt to use reason not favoritism to govern which should lead to a more equitable society.

But over the years as I’ve dealt with public administrators dealing with actual ethical dilemmas, with the Municipal Ethics Board trying to regulate ethics, and then these trials, I’ve come to realize that our conception of ethics does not reflect our basic humanity.  We’ve told human beings to divide themselves into public and private persona.  When performing their public roles, their personal interests, they are told, should not exist.  In pursuing the rule of law, we have banned human emotion and subjectivity. 

What I’m trying to argue in this paper is that means we are banning basic human instincts and behavior forcing people into all sorts of personal conflicts  We have to rethink our theories of ethics to acknowledge human subjectivity and find better ways to deal with it than we have now, which is to basically suppress it.  

The rules we have now are often mechanical which cause a great deal of inconvenience and possible technical violations that really are irrelevant to good government, yet allow serious ethical compromises.  Our laws tend to ban human civility and courtesy as potential ethical violations.  For example, as a volunteer  legislative staffer, I was told I would not be able to live in Juneau with an old friend without paying him, because I could not accept any gifts over $250.  This was despite the fact that he and his wife had often stayed with us in Anchorage.  So our basic social relationship as friends, if I had stayed with him, would have been forced into a business relationship.  Even more bizarre was the case of a legislative staffer who, if she lived with her mother in Juneau, would have had to pay rent because her mother was a lobbyist.  The fact that the staffer had a lobbyist for a mother was ok.  But if she lived with her, she’d have to pay rent. 

This is just a rough overview of the what I’m working on.  As you can see, spelling it out is not easy.  And I’m not sure what I can offer as an improvement in ethics overall other than recognizing explicitly that human beings cannot simply divide themselves into separate roles.  One option I’ve written about previously is to focus on the negative consequences of conflicts of interest rather than on the conflicts themselves.  The two key ones I see are undue gain (getting benefits that are not due the administrator through his contract) and improper influence (making public decisions using non-standard criteria (particularly criteria based on personal bias and/or benefit). 

So, I’m trying to squeeze a little more out of my brain each day to be able to explain this clearly - and also to understand it myself better.  The good part of this is that I can empathize with my daughter as she goes through a similar process to complete her dissertation.  I’m writing this after walking her to the Institute where she’s working on it. 

Berlin Thoughts - Bruno Taut, Architect

No new pictures today, I left my sd card in the computer.  But some from yesterday. 

Some things are starting to look familiar. It seemed like a warm day today though it was only in the high 60s (@20C). We met M's friend again and visited the flea market in old East Berlin. I bought a used cell phone. Now I need to get a sim card. Also bought a converter plug. Germany has round prongs that go into the wall. I think I got what I needed but at M's place, the sockets are deep in the wall and this won't fit in the hole.

I am still trying to make sense of things here. Blue jeans, generally tighter than in the US, are the norm. T shirts, long sleeve t's, hooded sweatshirts, layers, baggy sweaters, it's a very informal, almost intentionally sloppy look. I almost fit in.

M is staying in a really wonderful place. I was surprised to learn today that it was built in 1928. The Bauhaus architect, Bruno Taut, designed it as public housing for working class families. The rooms are very big, there are lots of windows, and while the floors are original, some of it has been modernized inside. It also has lots of garden area and the owner was busy planting flower pots on this first really nice Sunday.  Here's from Spiritus-Temporis: 

In 1924 [Taut] was made chief architect of GEHAG, a private housing concern, and designed several successful large residential developments ("Gross-Siedlungen") in Berlin, notably the 1925 Horseshoe Development ("Hufeisensiedlung"), named for its configuration around a pond, and the 1926 Uncle Tom's Cabin Development ("Onkel-Toms Hutte") in Zehlendorf, oddly named for a local restaurant and set in a thick grove of trees. The designs featured controversially modern flat roofs, humane access to sun, air and gardens, and generous amenities like gas, electric light, and bathrooms. Critics on the political Right complained that these developments were too opulent for 'simple people'. The progressive Berlin mayor Gustav Böss defended them: "We want to bring the lower levels of society higher."

Here's a view downstairs from the kitchen to the sun room.

This is the view from M's work table.  It's not that clear in the picture, but there are two sets of windows with an empty space in between. 

Here's a view from M's bedroom. 


I think I'm still feeling the effects of jetlag and my body isn't quite at home here yet.  But people have been very tolerant of my reawakening German. 

We'll be here until Friday.  Easy Jet to London cost us 83 Euros for two one way, which seems pretty reasonable - about $120.

Here's M's room.  


More tomorrow.  (It's after 11pm here and people have work tomorrow.)

Busy Saturday in Berlin 2 - River Walk and Second Movie

We had time to kill before the second movie so we walked along a small river, a canal almost.  There were lots of people there, lots of beer. 

Now we're in Görlitzer Park where lots of people were taking advantage of a warmish (it was one of those days where it seems warm in the sun and chilly in the shade) Saturday.  This group brought along their water pipes.

This was on the back of the building above.

This is the Görlitzer Subway station.

The movie was being shown in a building that had been taken over by squatters in the early 90s.  This is in the old East Berlin.  It had been rotting inside and was vacant, and unowned, I was told.  The squatters totally redid the insides and eventually gained title to the building.  Today, I was told, there are 22 people living here including 7 children.  This is where M's friend lives.

Here's a hallway I took to get to a restroom.

Here's the huge communal kitchen.  It reminded me of the kitchen in the Russian movie Hipsters that showed in the Anchorage [NOT Alaska] International Film Festival in December. 

And here's the room we saw the movie in.  It was video of a river in Jakarta, totally polluted with garbage.  As the scene moves along the river, the narrator reads from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.  Then we got the U-Bahn and S-Bahn home.